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Praise for Same Words, Different Language

“ Barbara Annis is a pioneer in encouraging the world of business to understand the differences between the way men and women communicate. She stands apart as an intelligent advisor to corporations, teaching them how to meld the talents of men and women into an effective whole. Same Words, Different Language is necessary reading for every person who wants to be better understood and be more understanding.”

—Marianne J. Legato, M.D., F.A.C.P, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Columbia University, Founder, Foundation for Gender-Specific Medicine, Inc.

“ Same Words, Different Language remains a landmark work that examines today’s workplace opportunities and challenges through a social interaction lens. It demon-strates why gender intelligence will inspire a culture of inclusiveness and create a sustainable source of economic advantage for individuals, leaders, and their organizations.”

—Lara Warner, Chief Financial Officer, Credit Suisse Investment Bank

“ Gender diversity centers on creating an inclusive culture for everyone, one that views and values people, first and foremost, for their potential to make a positive contribu-tion. I strongly believe that when we better understand each other, we better under-stand our customers and that’s a tremendous competitive advantage. In a world where smart communication and even smarter listening is a business imperative, Same Words, Different Language is the guidebook to that advantage.”

—Anka Wittenberg, Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer, SAP

“ The problem isn’t the differences between men and women, but how we recognize, value, and leverage those differences. Gender intelligence comes from understanding and appreciating the unique talents and skills that men and women bring to the table, and how their natural complement can improve productivity, innovativeness, and economic growth.”

—Janet C. Salazar, CEO and Founder, IMPACT Leadership 21

“ Annis confronts, head on, the elephant in the room. Men and women are not the same, are quite different, and actually complement each other perfectly. It’s about time we begin to understand, appreciate, and value each other’s ways of thinking and acting. Same Words, Different Language bravely illuminates the path to greater understanding.”

—Jane Allen, Chief Diversity Officer, Deloitte Canada

“ Same Words, Different Language helps illuminate the communications differences that exist between women and men. These differences can get in the way of team-work and performance. Given that our management ranks are almost evenly split between women and men, understanding these differences in order to facilitate bet-ter interaction and communications will truly help us succeed.”

—Philip Marineau, CEO, Levi Strauss & Company

“ As a practitioner toiling diligently in the arena of gender awareness, executive coach-ing, and personal transformation, Barbara Annis is a living legend. She has been a locomotive for change in the corporate world for almost 30 years. In that time, she’s pulled desired changes out of over 50,000 business executives and professionals in over 8,000 workshop seminars.... She unleashes the energies we need to envision and deliver futures we’ve only vaguely dreamed. And she does it by empowering teams of men and women to work in transformative partnerships, in collaborations that turn gender differences from a liability to an engine of new abilities.”

—O. Woodward Buckner, Chief Executive Officer, Buckner & Co.

“ Same Words, Different Language makes sense of the neurological differences between the genders. It builds a new form of conversation between men and women. More importantly, it builds a new form of collaboration. For over 2.5 million years, men and women have worked together to accomplish unreasonable outcomes during unreasonable times. But they’ve barely begun to tap the powers of their synergy. Same Words, Different Language is a seminal contribution to this new level of inquiry.”

—Howard Bloom, Author, Global Brain

“ There is a new frontier awaiting us, one that’s made itself clear in Annis’s adventures on the often stormy front-lines of diversity, relationship, and gender-awareness man-agement. Same Words, Different Language is the outcome of 3,600,000,000 man/woman hours of live transformational interactive experiences. I suspect cultural anthropologists, semanticists, neuroscientists, psychosocial biologists, strategists, organizational behaviorists and talk-show hosts will be ‘plumbing the gold’ from this practitioner’s treasure mine of real-world experiences for many years to come.”

—Chief Commentator, Business News-CNBC, Former Chairman of the FDIC and RTC

“ Thank you, thank you. I always thought that men were the ones who needed to under-stand; little did I know that I had a lot to learn about my own misinterpretations. I am so relieved that I can actually be a woman at work instead of a man in women’s clothes.”

—Cathy Diamond, IBM Executive

“ I didn’t know what to expect, and being a man, I was very careful on the first day. What a positive surprise! I actually enjoyed every single minute, while learning more than I have in any course. This was a watershed moment for all of us.”

—Deputy Minister, UK Treasury Department

“ No one better than Barbara Annis can show you how to build a high-performing cul-ture of inclusion. Years of extensive research and practical experience have given Barbara a unique perspective on how to overcome the deeply entrenched obstacles that create invisible chasms in organizations. Her incisive views on how men and women can most effectively work together will guide you in developing a leadership context where all differences can become complementary strengths.”

—Hubert Saint-Onge, Chief Executive Officer, Author, Leveraging Communities of Practice for Strategic Advance

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Same Words, Different Language

Same Words, Different LanguageA Proven Guide for Creating Gender Intelligence at Work

Third Edition

Barbara Annis

Associate Editor: Kim BoedigheimerSenior Marketing Manager: Stephane NakibCover Designer: Chuti PrasertsithManaging Editor: Sandra SchroderSenior Project Editor: Lori LyonsProject Manager: Maureen ForysCopy Editor: Rebecca RiderProofreader: Rebecca RiderIndexer: Valerie PerryCompositor: Maureen Forys

© 2016 by Pearson Education, Inc.Old Tappan, New Jersey 07675

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To my partner and husband, Paul Reed Currie, whose amazing support, love, and extraordinary

integrity I always admire and treasure.And to my wonderful children, Lauren, Sasha,

Stephane, and Christian; my bonus children, Zachary, Kelly, and Jeremy; and my grandchildren, Grayson,

Riley, Brydan, Jake, Alaia, Cameron, and Colin.

Contents at Glance

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii

Chapter 1 It’s Time to Change the Water We Swim In . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Chapter 2 How Gender Intelligent Are You? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Chapter 3 The Science of Gender Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Chapter 4 Attention, Women: How Men See You— and How They Feel About It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Chapter 5 The Word to Men: “Attention Must Be Paid” to Your Women Colleagues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chapter 6 Same Words, Different Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Chapter 7 Perception as Filter: Why Men and Women Live in Different Realities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Chapter 8 Assumptions and Blind Spots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Chapter 9 Understanding Our Strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Chapter 10 Resolving Gender Conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xxiii

Chapter 1 It’s Time to Change the Water We Swim In . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

The Women’s Side of the Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3The Lights Start Going On . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4The Fish Aquarium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6Traditional and New Business Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8Everyone’s Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10The Solution? Fresh Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Chapter 2 How Gender Intelligent Are You? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Men’s Stages of Awareness. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16Women’s Stages of Awareness . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Chapter 3 The Science of Gender Difference . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Tendencies, Not Absolutes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32Women and Men Have Different Brains . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33What’s the Difference? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35A Ride on the Hippocampus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36Problem Solving, Decision Making, and the

Prefrontal Cortex. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37Feelings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39Reading Feelings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40We Deal with Stress Differently . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41Teamwork: Collaborators or Competitors—

or Both? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42Not Better, Not Worse, Just Different . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

xiv Same WordS, different Language

Chapter 4 Attention, Women: How Men See You— and How They Feel About It . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Men’s Top Five Challenges Working with Women. . . . . . . . 49Challenge 1—Men Believe They Have to Be Careful . . . . . 50Challenge 2—Men Feel Confused . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52Challenge 3—Men Fear Being Accused of Harassment . . . 54Challenge 4—Men Perceive Overt Focus on Women . . . . . 55Challenge 5—Men Feel Blamed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57

Chapter 5 The Word to Men: “Attention Must Be Paid” to Your Women Colleagues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Women’s Top Five Challenges Working with Men. . . . . . . . 62Challenge 1—Women Feel Dismissed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64Challenge 2—Women Feel Excluded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66Challenge 3—Women Feel Tested . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68Challenge 4—Aping the Clichés of

Alpha-Male Behavior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70Challenge 5—Women Feel Like Tokens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72

Chapter 6 Same Words, Different Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Language Quiz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77“Yes” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78“What Do You Think?” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80“Teamwork” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82“Tabling an Idea” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83“Arguments” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85“Success”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86“How to Listen Effectively”. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88“The Best Way to Convince Is…” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89Take Responsibility . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90

Chapter 7 Perception as Filter: Why Men and Women Live in Different Realities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93

Men’s and Women’s Sore Toes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95Women’s Sore Toe—“Protective Behavior” . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96Women’s Sore Toe—Feeling “Excluded” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98Women’s Sore Toe—“Male-Centered Language” . . . . . . . . 99Women’s Sore Toe—Being Discounted or Discredited . . 100Women’s Sore Toe—Male Bonding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101

ContentS xv

Women’s Sore Toe—When Men are Overly Cautious . . . . 102Women’s Perceptual Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103Men’s Sore Toe—“When Women Don’t

Articulate Problems Clearly” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103Men’s Sore Toe—“Women Generalize” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104Men’s Sore Toe—“Women Get Emotional” . . . . . . . . . . . . 105Men’s Sore Toe—“Why Don’t Women Correct

Inappropriate Behavior?” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106Men’s Sore Toe—“Women Don’t Get to the Point” . . . . . . 107Take Ownership of Your Filters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Chapter 8 Assumptions and Blind Spots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Maya’s Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111Blind Spots at Home . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113Blind Spots Are Self-Perpetuating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114Men’s Blind Spots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116Women’s Blind Spots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

Chapter 9 Understanding Our Strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129

Management Styles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130Problem Solving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131Job Interviews . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132Performance Evaluations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134Male and Female Behavior at Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135Selling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136Delegating . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137Negotiation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138Networking. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139Public Speaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141Look to the Other. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142Be More Inclusive: Start with Giving Promotions . . . . . . . 145Converting Differences into Strengths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145Things Are Changing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146

Chapter 10 Resolving Gender Conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

Attacking versus Resolving . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151So How Can We Resolve Conflicts? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152S.A.R.A. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154Commit to Short-Term Suffering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

xvi Same WordS, different Language

The Win-Win Way—Outcome Frame . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157Team Conflicts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159“Ah-hah” Moments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

Afterword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Acknowledgments

Thank you to the many thousands of men and women around the world who have participated in this work and who have ensured that it made a lasting difference. Thank you to Susanna Margolis, who care-fully crafted the language and made this book sing. Thank you to the teams at Happenstance and Pearson and to our literary agent, Carol Mann, for bringing this work into the world. I also want to acknowl-edge our friends, colleagues, and clients for having made tremendous contributions in their sphere of influence.

I wish to thank Lee Akazaki, Kenchiro Akiyama, Jane Allen, Jennifer Allyn, Shahla Aly, Heidi Rottbol Andersen, Greg Van Asperen, Beth Axelrod, Robin Baliszewski, Clare Beckton, Jim Beqaj, Jill Beresford, Megan Beyer, Gina Bianchini, Johan Bjorklund, Rob Bloom, Maryann Bloomfield, Dr. Iris Bohnet, Lynda Bowles, Stephanie Hanbury Brown, Woody Buckner, Victoria Budson, James Bush, Dr. Larry Cahill, Bob Cancalosi, Susan Cartsonis, Kenneth Chenault, Jennifer Christie, Adel Cotichini, Kevin Cox, Judy Dahm, Geena Davis, Christa Dowling, Nancy Elder, Carol Evans, John Fallon, John Fayad, Dr. Helen Fisher, Stacey Fisher, Nancy Forsyth, Gaby Giglio, Ed Gilligan, Dr. John Gray, Neena Gupta, Dr. Ruben Gur, Bruce Haase, Nadine Hack, John Hart, Jane Hewson, Jan Hill, Arianna Huffington, Swanee Hunt, Theresa Jabour, Dr. Joseph Jaworski, Elisabeth Jensen, Gail Kelman, Robin Kennedy, Mary Jo Kovach, Michael Kubina, Sonya Kunkel, Dr. George Labovitz, Stan Labovitz, Jennifer Laidlaw, Uno Langmann, Carolyn Lawrence, Bruce Leamon, Chuck Ledsinger, Dr. Marianne Legato, Maria LeRose, Elizabeth Lesser, Pernille Spiers-Lopez, Renee Lundholm, Anne Madison, Susanna Margolis, Marguerite McLeod, Ramón Martín, Graciela Meibar, Kathleen Merron, Dr. Keith Merron, Pat Mitchell, Dr. Anne Moir, Betsy Myers, Richard Nesbitt, Kenna Ose, Constance

xviii Same WordS, different Language

Peak, Paola Corna Pellegrini, Kerrie Peraino, Matt Peterson, Phyllis Stewart Pires, Allison Pogemiller, Jennifer Reynolds, Dr. Alan Richter, Adel Rickets, Eiko Saito, Janet Salazar, Hubert Saint-Onge, Ulla Sanbaek, Sheryl Sandberg, Nicole Schwab, Maria Shriver, Dr. Janet Smith, Jim Hagerman Snabe, Val Sorbie, Erin Stein, Sean Stowers, Claudia Studle, Kate Sweetman, Dr. Deborah Tannen, Kendra Thomas, Rachel Thomas, Aniela Unguresan, Dr. Karin Verland, Dr. Elena Vigna, Emily Viner, Lara Warner, James Ward, Gillian Whitebread, Donna Wilson, Marie Wilson, Oprah Winfrey, Dr. Sandra Witelson, Anka Wittenberg, Dr. Jeannette Wolfe, Janet Wood, and Jacki Zehner.

To all the amazing deeply committed women and men leaders and staff at the Women’s Leadership Board, Harvard Kennedy School, and to the Edge Certified Foundation; I am honored to partner with you in creating a world where men and women are equally valued and respected in all aspects of economic, political, and social life. To the Clinton Global Initiative for bringing gender intelligence to its global efforts to create and implement innovative solutions for the world’s most pressing challenges; to the remarkable board members of the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World (IWSAW) at Lebanese American University, in Beirut, Lebanon, for their endur-ing contribution to empowering women in the Arab world through development, programs, and education; and to all the organizations and their men and women who are embracing gender intelligence because they want to work and succeed together including:

American Express, Ashridge Business School, Baker Tilly Virchow Krause, Bank of America, Bentley University, Blake, Cassels & Graydon, BMO Financial Group, Choice Hotels International, CIBC, Costco, Crayola, Credit Suisse, Danish CEO Network, Dassault Systèmes, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, Disney, eBay, EDS, Electrolux, Ericsson, Federal Business Development Bank, Fidelity Investments, Financial Times, Ford Motor Company, Fordham University, Gender Equality Project Geneva, Goodman & Carr, Google, Greenberg Traurig, Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, Harvard University, HSBC Bank, IBM, IKEA, Imperial Oil, Industry Canada, Kellogg’s, KVINFO, Johnson & Johnson, LEGO, Levi Strauss & Company, Loblaws, Mattel, McDonalds, Microsoft, Molson Coors, Motorola, Department of National Defense Canada, Nav Canada,

Acknowledgments� • � xix

Nissan, Novartis, Oliver Wyman, Pax World, Pearson Education, Pfizer, Prentice Hall, PricewaterhouseCoopers, RBC Financial, Ritchie Bros. Auctioneers, SAP, Scotiabank, SMBC, Sun Life Insurance, Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce, Symcor, Tambrands, Technip, Toshiba, Treasury Board of Canadian Secretariat, UBS Investments, Unilever, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Department of Defense, Wells Fargo, Wells Fargo Women of Influence, Women in Film, Wood Gundy Securities, and Xerox.

About the Author

Barbara Annis, a world-renowned expert on inclusive leader-ship, corporate culture, and gender issues, is the founder and CEO of Gender Intelligence Group (formerly Barbara Annis & Associates), which advocates for gender intelligence in Fortune 500 companies and global organizations. Her work has pioneered a transformational shift in how to leverage gender differences to achieve organizational success.

Annis began her career as the first woman in sales at Sony, where she achieved 14 Outstanding Sales Achievement Awards and Sony’s MVP Award. Since founding the Gender Intelligence Group, her global team of associates has facilitated more than 8,000 corporate workshops and conducted thousands of leadership assessments and executive coaching sessions. Based on Annis’s breakthrough research on the practice and benefits of inclusive leadership and gender diver-sity, Gender Intelligence Group today offers diagnostics, workshops, and coaching both onsite and online.

Annis is also the chairperson emerita of the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard Kennedy School and the author of Gender Intelli-gence, Breakthrough Strategies for Increasing Diversity and Improv-ing Your Bottom Line, coauthored with Dr. Keith Merron; Leadership and the Sexes, coauthored with Michael Gurian; and Work with Me, cowritten with John Gray.

Introduction

In the nearly 15 years since the first edition of this book, much progress has been made toward a more balanced gender distribu-tion in corporate organizations. The number of women in positions of responsibility and leadership has risen dramatically in business, the professions, and government. Why, therefore, is a third edition of Same Words, Different Language so necessary?

Because the numbers, while gratifying, aren’t the point. After all, you can have an army a million strong, but if you send it into battle unarmed, your chances of achieving victory are minimal. Similarly, adding women to the ranks of organizations only throws into sharp relief what the women, the men they work beside, and above all, the organizations they work for are missing out on—and what all will continue to miss out on so long as women and men mouth the same words but speak a different language from one another.

Here’s the issue: the science is now pretty clear that men and women go about the process of thinking, looking at the world, and navigating their way through it in gender-specific ways. The differ-ences are not solely the result of a particular culture’s socialization; they are, in fact, hard-wired variations in brain structure and bio-chemistry. Women in corporate life are plunked down in a cultural construct that has been defined for generations by male behavior and male-specific rules, and the way to succeed in such a situation is to adopt that behavior and bend to those rules. In doing so, however, women leave at the door their natural way of looking at the world and their natural habits of perception, problem solving, and collaboration. And like the hapless soldier in the thick of battle without a weapon, they feel frustrated—shortchanged. Worse, their organizations are shortchanged; they are losing out not just on the unique benefits that women’s gender-specific attributes can bring, but more to the point,

xxiv Same WordS, different Language

they are missing out on the exceptional advantage that can be pro-duced when both women and men understand the gender differences and know how to optimize them. When that happens, when men and women are finally speaking the same language and can take from and add to the other’s gender-specific strengths and abilities, the work they produce together, not surprisingly, is far better than anything either gender could manage on its own.

For more than a quarter of a century, I have been involved in the effort to get women and men to speak the same language and to work together with gender intelligence—that is, with an under-standing of and appreciation for the natural differences between men and women.1 I’ve held countless workshops all over the world, have consulted with thousands of corporate leaders, and have cre-ated an online curriculum, “Be Gender Intelligent,” to carry the message to as many people as possible. The results have been grati-fying beyond my expectations. The reason is simple: being gender intelligent works. The organization functions better, the people who work there are more engaged, and the performance results are off the charts.

That’s what this edition of Same Words, Different Language is about. It’s your guide to becoming gender intelligent and to infusing gender intelligence into your workplace. Updated to reflect the les-sons learned from that quarter century of experience, it will help you learn proactively how to be gender intelligent in ways that beneficially impact how you manage a team, problem-solve, think innovatively, coach, counsel, advise, and execute. (I don’t mean just at work, either; the lessons here will work anywhere women and men come into con-tact with one another.)

Be prepared to see and hear yourself in many of the scenarios in these pages. Are you pretty sure you’re free of preexisting ideas—and certainly of prejudices—about the other gender? Don’t be sur-prised—and don’t be angry with yourself—to find it isn’t so. Face what you find honestly—and expect the same from the woman or man sitting across the table from you.

1. Gender Intelligence® is a registered trademark of the Gender Intelligence Group.

introduCtion xxv

Then get ready to peer inside the mind of the other gender. You may realize that you have very probably misinterpreted the behav-ior of others in the past. You may find that your own gender-related behavior sometimes stymies the very goals you think you’re pursuing. You’ll certainly see just how different are the realities the two genders see, and how the same words can mean to the other gender almost the opposite of what you think they mean.

All this can help you listen differently, avoid misunderstanding, and get your own message across in a way that the person you’re com-municating with will understand.

It won’t take long for you to see that although men and women are certainly different, there’s a lot more uniting than dividing us. We all want the same things from our work: the feeling that we are con-tributing something of value, the opportunity as individuals to learn and grow, and the chance to be part of an organization that makes both those goals possible.

—Barbara Annis

Please visit www.pearsoned.com/gender-intelligence for informa-tion about our online transformational learning experience.

http://www.pearsoned.com/gender-intelligence

1

1It’s Time to Change the

Water We Swim In

Water to the fish, air to the bird, both can’t see it, but they can feel the turbulent forces of change.

—Stephen Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

The first time I talked to them, they told me theirs was the kind of New York law firm that young lawyers were “dying” to work for. But from what other people had told me about the place, I suspected people were “dying” from working there. I was right. In the last year, several of their top lawyers, all women, had left. The women said they left for “family reasons” or “work-life balance.” I knew there was more to it than that.

It really was an impressive law firm. The office was huge and luxu-rious, and the client list was a Who’s Who of top companies. Work-ing there was every young lawyer’s dream. The partners at the firm wanted the best talent at any price and had no problem attracting the cream of the crop of law school graduates.

Yet something was going wrong. In addition to the loss of several top female lawyers, a number of talented younger lawyers, male and female but predominantly female, had also recently left. There was a trend here, as one of the firm’s clients noticed. The client, a bank I worked for, gave the law firm my number. “You people need help,” the banker told the firm’s partners.

When I started meeting senior partners and employees at the firm, I saw the problems right away. Both men and women at the firm com-plained about the working environment. One younger partner told me that the senior partners regularly made inappropriate comments

2 Same WordS, different Language

about women. Several people mentioned the women partners who had left the previous year. “Oh yeah, there was that long-legged girl who was working for us,” recalled one of the senior partners, conjur-ing up what seemed to be an already indistinct memory of one of those women; he thought she’d left for family reasons. A junior partner told me about a dinner party where senior partners exchanged sexist jokes while the women at the table stared stonily, pretending not to hear, or rolled their eyes in the best good humor they could muster. That gave me a good idea of the kinds of problems they were probably having.

I decided to meet up with the “long-legged” ex-partner, whose name was Sandra. As it turned out, she hadn’t left her job for “fam-ily reasons” at all. Shortly after she left, she launched her own firm. A single mother with a ten-year-old daughter, Sandra welcomed me into her stylish new office. A graduate of a prestigious law school, she had all the polish and assurance her credentials and experience sug-gested. Her new firm was doing lots of business, and professionally, she told me, she was a lot happier now.

Slowly, the story of why she had left her old job unfolded. Sandra had suspected it would be a tough place to work when she was hired. It was, but she stuck it out for 12 years. “I had genuine commitment to the firm and to the work I was doing,” she told me. “But then it just got to be too much. I couldn’t stand the atmosphere anymore. By the end, I had to drag myself to work.” What was going on?

As Sandra put it, no matter how hard she worked and no matter how many hours she put in, she never felt like she was regarded as “one of the boys.” At meetings, the partners would discuss business as if she weren’t even there. “I didn’t feel valued,” Sandra said. “It got to the point where I had to admit that nothing was improving”—cer-tainly not if a partner could still refer to this grown-up professional as a “girl”—and a “long-legged” one at that.

It was a shame, she said, because she loved working with her clients and found the atmosphere stimulating. That’s what kept her going for so long, she said. She had thrived on the challenging cli-ent relationships, and she was aware that working with these clients had enabled her to hone her professional skills. But at some point it occurred to her that she worked in two worlds. Her clients treated her like a professional, and her colleagues continually treated her as

chApter1 • It’s� • �tImetochAngethewAterwes� • �wImIn 3

though she were a subordinate. Sandra felt that no one valued her or recognized her unique skills, and since she wasn’t being given the responsibilities she deserved, she simply decided to move on. As she put it, “What choice did I have?”

To avoid having to explain, she told her associates that she needed more time with her daughter. They were surprised, and they were sad to see her go, but they took her at her word. Everyone left it at that.

The Women’s Side of the Story

I knew it wasn’t that simple, and I knew it wasn’t just Sandra’s story. I arranged to meet up with six other women who had left the firm the previous year to hear what they had to say. Their complaints were almost exactly the same as Sandra’s. They weren’t treated as equal colleagues no matter how much they worked. Instead, they were constantly singled out; they felt they were viewed as being “less confident” than their male counterparts, but they weren’t sure why. Every time they asked a rigorous question it was turned back onto them, as if the men thought the women were being suspicious rather than simply seeking information.

One woman complained to her associates that she was never given high-profile cases. “Women work on these cases, but we are never in the limelight,” she said. In fact, the women felt they were shown even less respect than their junior male colleagues. Even the support staff gave a lot more “support” to men than to them. When I asked the women how their male colleagues reacted when they tried to talk about these issues, they responded, to a woman, that they were told “we were exaggerating or over-personalizing. They said we were being overly critical or making a mountain out of a molehill.”

In the end, these women too felt unheard, under-challenged, and under-valued by their colleagues. They were paid less and got less respect than their male colleagues. But the worst of it, they all agreed, was the feeling of isolation they had felt working at this celebrated and highly respected firm. They weren’t part of the “boys’ network,” but there was no “girls’ network.” They felt as if they were on their own, adrift in a sea of problems that couldn’t be discussed with any-one else, let alone solved.


So like Sandra, they talked with their feet. And since the women were sure no one would understand their real reasons for leaving, they each gave the easiest, most legitimate excuse they could think of, usually a variation on the same theme. Several called it “work-life balance,” a catch phrase for “family.” The rest said they needed more “flexibility,” a word which, to their lawyer partners, sounded like about the same thing.

The partners believed the women’s excuses. Everyone took the women’s words at face value. “Leaving for family reasons” had a famil-iar ring to it. As some of the partners told me themselves, “It goes with being a woman.” It was predictable. None of them made the connec-tion between the atmosphere they described to me and the women’s departures. Seven lawyers out of the door in one year, all women, and no one saw a trend!

The Lights Start Going On

But there was a connection. My colleague Keith and I had inter-viewed almost everyone working for the firm, either individually or in focus groups. Many employees felt the firm’s environment was domi-nated by patronizing behavior. Of course, a lot of women felt this way, but surprisingly, so did a lot of men. Many of the lawyers complained about a macho atmosphere, elitism on the part of senior partners, and a “star status” attributed to certain partners. They resented the turf wars and objected to the endless meetings, to which only certain partners were invited, while others emphatically were not. Many men confessed that they were uncomfortable with the environment at the firm, but that they were afraid to bring up their concerns with the senior partners. There was a lot of pressure on them to conform.

Needless to say, the partners were not too happy to hear the results of my interviews. True to their lawyerly training, they particularized or picked apart every complaint set before them. They demanded examples of patronizing behavior, and then dismissed those examples for one reason or another. They said things like, “Oh, it must have been so-and-so who said that. She has it in for me.” I reported that one woman was tired of being told “not to worry her little head over things.” The woman was, in fact, petite. “I know who that is,” blurted


out one partner. “She just has a short-person complex. That’s got nothing to do with gender.”

Their response to the complaints: kill the messenger. If I had left them to it, they would have spent the entire day dissecting each com-plaint to satisfy themselves that not one of them was legitimate. There were moments when I wished I could just leave them to their own nitpicking, but I pressed on, trying to steer through the acrimony until the senior partners saw what was going on.

After several hours of arguing, one of the women in the group decided to speak up, and the tone in the room changed. It was not beside the point that she was their top litigation lawyer, nor that she had been silent up to that moment. She looked at the senior partners and addressed them directly. “You regard me as if I were your daugh-ter,” she said. “You may not realize it, but that’s what you do.” It was, she told them, behavior she found humiliating.

Her words hit the mark. For a moment, there was silence; then the floodgates opened. “You mean, I do that?” one man asked. When the partners started to see how their own actions affected the women working at their firm, all the themes we had been discussing took on a new light. Until then, no one had actually made a connection between the departures of the seven women the previous year and the com-plaints others were making about the environment. The partners all saw them as “isolated” incidents. Then, all of a sudden, everyone saw the women’s departures as part of a larger problem: the working atmosphere at the firm was corrosive. The atmosphere wasn’t actually killing individual people, but it was quickly killing the firm.

It didn’t take the partners long to see how much the bad atmo-sphere was costing them. Everyone knew that when the women left, they took valuable clients with them. Everyone was aware that losing those clients had cost the firm millions in lost business. When they calculated the total cost of seven lawyers leaving, it really sunk in.

“I guess we have a problem,” one partner concluded.

“I think that’s putting it mildly,” said another.

It’s tempting—and satisfying—to see this as a tale of a group of angry lawyers learning a lesson about the high price they paid for treating women badly. The male partners at the firm said and did things that were offensive to women. The women eventually threw


in the towel and took business worth millions with them. Keith and I made the men aware of how they had caused the women’s departure, and they resolved to change their ways. But how?

Solving the problem in this firm, as in most companies, is not about finding a villain, or deciding who’s right and who’s wrong. It’s not about men “learning their lessons.” It’s about changing an environment that’s hurting everyone. Law firms, banks, and large international accounting firms aren’t the only places where corrosive work environments make people feel alienated and frustrated. I see these environments in all kinds of organizations and fields: sales, man-ufacturing, retail, education, and government.

The good news? Each of us can help change that environment, no matter where we work.

The situation in the law firm, like that in every company or orga-nization I work for, is the result of misunderstandings. Those mis-understandings start because men and women differ in fundamental ways: in how we think, how we communicate, how we assimilate information, and more. When we don’t understand those differences, we project our reactions onto the other gender and judge the gen-der as a whole, without ever understanding the real message or what an individual’s behavior really means. Both men and women play an equal role in the misunderstandings.

And both men and women can change their behavior. It all starts with identifying the environment in which we spend our working lives, and in doing what we can to make it a place where we can all thrive.

The Fish Aquarium

If you only take one lesson from this book, it’s this: men and women are different. I hope you’ll forgive me if, for the sake of anal-ogy, I use the concept of men and women as different (but both extraordinary) types of fish.

Think of today’s work environment as an aquarium you own in which beautiful red fish have been flourishing for years. One day, you decide to add blue fish. If it worked for the red ones, it’ll work for the blue ones, you tell yourself. They’re both fish, after all. The only


difference is their color. But when you add the blue fish, something goes wrong. They don’t like it. They don’t flourish. The water doesn’t seem to suit them, and pretty soon they start to make the red fish unhappy, too. The conclusion is inescapable. If you want both fish to flourish, you have to change the water.

That’s where the workplace is right now. There’s something wrong with the water we’re swimming in. Many women aren’t happy at work, and neither are a lot of men. It’s not women’s fault. And it’s not men’s fault. It’s the water we’re swimming in.

Most companies that come to me for help think they have a “women problem.” Either they’ve had a problem advancing women, or they’re losing women and don’t understand why. Sometimes com-panies call me because an inner group—usually women—has gath-ered and decided something needs to be done about how women are treated there.

Although most of the business leaders I meet know that there is a problem in today’s workplace that needs to be addressed, many believe it’s just a matter of “getting the numbers right.” A manager from a major pharmaceutical company recently told me this: “Just look at the facts. The policies are there to ensure equality between women and men.” A young investment banker attending one of my workshops said, “Our bank is proud of the progress we have made with our female staff. We even have two at the executive management level.” Other companies I deal with boast about how their programs to promote women in management or through their special women’s networks are “taking care of things.” But nothing could be further from the truth.

That truth is that women are generally less comfortable in today’s work environment than men. It’s no mystery why. Despite the fact that today, women make up the majority of both university under-graduates, and top-position graduates in business, law, accounting, medicine, sociology, and education, and despite women’s massive entry into most areas of employment, the working world they have joined was designed, for the most part, by men! It’s nobody’s fault. It’s just that, generally speaking, when the corporate model was devel-oped, the overwhelming majority of the workforce was male. As a result, men have written the basic rules for how almost everything


in the office gets done: from writing reports, to conducting evalua-tions, to the way board meetings are run. Those rules have stuck, even though they don’t reflect the way many individual men would now choose to run things.

Traditional and New Business Models

The traditional business model is so common and so universal that no one even notices it. It’s invisible, like water is to the fish. Yet it was essentially written from a mindset that makes sense to men: it’s based on a military model of command and control, one that is mir-rored also in team sports. It looks roughly like this:

HierarchicalCommand and controlInformation hoardingCentralized decision

Authority, rulesSport—win/lose

Intimidation, competition

Top Down

The Traditional Business Model

Why do women struggle with this model? It simply doesn’t cor-respond to the way they naturally think and work. If women were left to their own devices, they would write a very different set of rules for the business world. Women naturally seek collaboration and coop-eration. Women have a completely different view of what “team” means—how teams should function and what their objective is.


Women almost always try to advance projects by achieving consensus. Does this sound like an unfounded generalization based on traditional ideas about women? Lots of people might think so. But it’s true. And not only is it true, it constitutes one of women’s greatest strengths in business. In fact, women’s “natural” model looks a lot like the new paradigm that many of today’s businesses are trying to adopt.

TrustWin/win

EmpowermentPartnership

WebsSelf-directed groups

Flattened managementValue based

Relationship based

Bottom Up

The New Business Model

The Traditional Model for business is a fish tank in which women don’t thrive. The difficulty most men have in recognizing and appre-ciating this is that they seldom, if ever, find themselves in a similar situation in the workplace.

Nathan, a young male manager, and the only man on the board of The Body Shop, an international skin products company, told me he was unfamiliar with his company’s way of making decisions. The company operated on the new paradigm, a collaborative model. Whereas the Tra-ditional Model focuses on a goal and on finding the means to achieve the goal, the New Model focuses on empowerment, building trust, and collaboration. This model was completely counterintuitive to Nathan. “I can’t believe we ever get anything done,” he said. But they do.


For women, the traditional working environment feels like a kind of silent, ongoing culture shock. That’s probably why almost half the women I meet in workshops are considering leaving their jobs. “The workplace just isn’t conducive to valuing women,” they constantly tell me.

Women’s culture shock usually starts after college or graduate school, the last time men and women work together in a genuine team spirit before heading out into the “real” world. In the workplace, men naturally shift to the hierarchical mode. They feel comfortable in that sport/games model. Men’s teams have “leaders,” “stars,” and a dis-tinct structure from the outset. The teams exist only to meet targets, to “win.” Terms like “partnership” and “team-building” have become very stylish in the business world these days, but in reality, men’s idea of “teamwork” still follows the same old model—namely, that a good team player is someone who follows the boss. Today, for many women, and for an increasing number of men, this corporate model no longer works.

Everyone’s Problem

That’s where today’s workplace is. Everywhere, large numbers of people are unhappy at work. A recent international study by Gal-lup offers a good illustration of how low worker morale really is. The study questioned 1.7 million workers in 101 companies in 63 different countries. The workers were asked whether they “felt they had the opportunity to do their best every day” at their job. Only 20 percent of employees said yes! Only one-fifth of today’s workers feel they are getting the opportunity to put their personal strengths and talents to work. The study found that the longer the employ-ees stayed in their jobs and the higher they climbed the traditional career ladder, the less they felt they were giving their “best stuff” at work. When 80 percent of employees feel they aren’t making the contribution they could be making at their jobs, there’s clearly a problem.

You’re probably thinking, “Okay, maybe there is a problem. But it’s only in traditional businesses or old-fashioned companies.” That’s a modern myth. Everywhere I see men and women working together,


they are encountering the same problems. Even modern high-tech companies aren’t exempt from the rule.

The common wisdom is that working women want to spend more time with their families. But the reality is that everyone does, men and women alike. What many of the women I meet really want from their work—and what they’re not getting—is the feeling that they are doing something meaningful and that they are valued. A lot of men I meet feel this way too.

The problem in today’s workplace is not a “women’s problem.” Companies, organizations, and associations of all types need to learn how to make use of both men’s and women’s strengths. That’s the only way to change the water we swim in so that everyone will be happy and productive.

Leaders in very few of the companies I meet understand that the issue in today’s workplace is not just about “treating women better” but about changing the environment of their company so women, and men, will thrive and flourish.

Mike, senior manager at a large accounting firm, is one of many men who have told me how concerned they are about getting and keeping professional women. “I know there’s something about the environment that alienates women,” he told me. “It’s not discrimina-tion, really. It’s just subtle differences in the way women are treated.”

Mike is among the more enlightened business leaders with respect to gender awareness. These precious few already understand that gender communication problems are a business problem. They know the growth in their company—their aquarium—will be held back unless they find a way to change the water.

The Solution? Fresh Water

So where do we start? The first step in overcoming gender-based misunderstanding is to realize that men and women really are differ-ent. That’s a surprisingly tough concept to get across these days. Over time, the prevailing wisdom has held that “equal” means “the same.” It doesn’t. Men and women don’t think the same way. They don’t communicate the same way. They don’t hear the same things when


they are spoken to and they don’t mean the same things when they speak. A lot of the time, we just think we understand when we don’t. Miscommunication feeds misinterpretation.

It’s always tempting for women to say, “Men have to change. That will solve all our problems.” But that way of thinking won’t get either women or men ahead. It’s a mistake to think that if women are los-ing out, men are winning. It’s not a zero-sum game. Gender-based miscommunication hurts everyone. The current environment is not men’s fault, and the way to fix it is not as simple as “getting men to change.” As much as men need to understand how women think and communicate, women need to understand the same about men.

Both genders need to understand where the other is coming from, and they need to be able to walk a mile in each other’s shoes. The only way to do that is by understanding how we are different. We think differently. We assimilate information differently. And we com-municate differently.

This book is about changing the water in the aquarium. It’s about turning a no-win situation into a win-win situation. The idea is not to throw out the old model once and for all and replace it with the new model. There are situations in business where the old model still works well—where hierarchical, centralized decision-making is very effective. But the environment has to change. How do we change it? By developing congruence between the old and the new, recognizing the special strengths men and women both bring to the table, and knowing how and when to put those strengths to use. When you do that, the environment will change. Not only will women be happier, everyone will. You’ll create a work environment that

✓ Encourages open and honest communication

✓ Fosters the continual development of all employees

✓ Recognizes and appreciates everyone’s strengths

✓ Maximizes everyone’s engagement and productivity

✓ Applies an inclusive, not exclusive, approach to gender difference

✓ Respects the individual and values integrity


The secret to changing the environment is understanding gender difference. As you’ll see in the following chapters, a lot of gender com-munication problems boil down to some simple differences between us. At least, those simple differences plant the seed from which the problems grow. I’ve observed the differences over and over again in my work. They are things you have all told me about yourselves.

Until we understand our differences, we will keep misinterpret-ing each other. But that change starts with you. Until you understand how life looks and sounds through the eyes and ears of the other gen-der, you will continue to misunderstand it.

The good news? At the end of your trip through these pages—through gender difference and back again—you’ll see that although men and women are different, there’s a lot more uniting us than dividing us. People basically want the same thing from their work: the feeling that they are contributing and that they have the opportunity as individuals to learn and grow.

In the next chapter, you’ll take the first step on the gender jour-ney, and that means taking a good, hard look at how much you actu-ally know about gender difference.

Index

Aacademic statistics, 7acceptance . See S .A .R .A . (Surprise,

Anger, Rejection, Acceptance)accounting firm, 11accusations of harassment

insights, 54–55male perspective, 54women’s reaction, 54

Adams, John, 31agendas, creation by men, 36Albright, Madeleine, 135Alda, Alan, 111alpha-male behavior . See clichés of

alpha-male behavioramygdala, 40anger . See S .A .R .A . (Surprise, Anger,

Rejection, Acceptance)aquarium, 6–8, 12–13arguing effectively, 78“arguments”

misunderstandings, 85–86perceptions, 85solutions, 86

articulating problems unclearlymale perspective, 103women’s filter and solution, 104

assumptions, relying on, 47, 111attacking versus resolving conflict,

151–154automatic behavior, 95–96

automatic versus systematic, 35awareness . See Recognition/

Awareness; Stages of Awareness

Bbankers, 7, 21, 117 . See also

investment firmsbehavior . See also inappropriate

behaviorautomatic nature of, 95–96at meetings, 135–136

being carefulinsights, 51male perspective, 50–51women’s reaction to men, 50–51

being discounted or discreditedfemale perspective, 100men’s filter, 100–101solution for men, 100–101

being heard at meetings, 135–136being inclusive, 145bell curves, intuitive and factual

tendencies, 33Blair, Tony, 61–62Blame Frame, 156–164 . See also

feeling blamed; Outcome Frameblind spots, 111 . See also men’s blind

spots; women’s blind spotsbreaking cycle of, 115–116at home, 113–114identifying, 113self-perpetuating, 114–116

171


blood flow, tracking with MRI scanner, 42–43

Bloom, Howard, 150Blum, Deborah, 38Bohr, Niels, 47–49bottom line, impact on, 5–6bottom-up business model, 9brain . See also female brain; male

brainamygdala, 40blood flow, 34–35corpus callosum, 34, 39diffusion tensor imaging, 34emotional centers, 35hemispheres, 33hippocampus, 36–37insula, 39prefrontal cortex, 37–38right and left, 33–34

brain functionsdifferences between, 31impact on behavior, 32

brain size, differences between, 31breakthroughs, sharing, 143–144Brizendine, Louanne, 34, 39Bush, George W ., 62business impact, 5–6business models, 8–10 . See also

industries and professions

CCahill, Larry, 39–40career shift, consideration by

women, 28Chabris, Christopher, 43changes in industries, 146–148checking strategies, using for blind

spots, 115–116children, gender-specific behaviors, 32clichés of alpha-male behavior

female perspective, 70–71insights, 72men’s reaction to women, 71

collaborators and competitors, 42–43

collective intelligence, 43colonels, 19combining approaches, 142–145comfort zones, 95–96communication

breakdown in, 154and perceptual filters, 95resolving problems with, 156

communication, differences in, 75complaints, men’s responses to, 5computer firm, 112conclusions, jumping to, 75conflicts . See also Blame Frame;

Outcome Frame“ah-hah” moments, 162–164among sales representatives,

159–162attacking versus resolving, 151–152Blame Frame, 156co-creating win-win solutions, 163communication problems, 156dealing with, 149–151framing conversations, 163long-term intentions, 155–157between men and women, 152–153Outcome Frame, 156–159phone messages, 155–157reacting to, 150resolving, 152–154short-term suffering, 155–157on teams, 159–162

confusion . See feeling confusedConfusion/Frustration, 15

men’s Stages of Awareness, 20–21women’s Stages of Awareness, 27–28

consensus, seeking, 9consulting firms, 21, 120, 147conversations, framing for

conflicts, 163convincing others

misunderstandings, 89–90perceptions, 89solution, 90

corporate model, origin of, 7–8

index 173

corpus callosum, 34, 39courtship story, 93–94Covey, Stephen, 1culture shock, experience by

women, 10

DDanish versus Italian culture, 76daughter, being treated like, 5decision making, 37–38, 47defensive behavior, managing, 116delegating, 137–138Denial, men’s Stage of Awareness,

17–19Denial/Unawareness, of women, 24–26differences, converting into strengths,

145–146diffusion tensor imaging, 34

Eemotion and memory, brain center of,

36–37emotional centers, distribution of, 35emotions

noticing, 40processing, 41

engineering firm, 158Enlightened Denial, 15, 18–19“equal” versus “the same,” 11–12equality, demand for, 31–32expectations, failure meeting, 150

Ffacial expressions, deciphering, 40factual and intuitive tendencies, 33“family reasons,” leaving jobs for, 4feeling blamed . See also Blame Frame

insights, 58–59male perspective, 57–58women’s reaction to men, 58

feeling confusedinsights, 53–54male perspective, 52women’s reaction to men, 52–53

feeling dismissedfemale perspective, 64–65insights, 65–66male perspective, 50men’s reaction to women, 65

feeling excludedfemale perspective, 66–67insights, 68men’s reaction to women, 67

feeling like tokensfemale perspective, 72–73insights, 73–74men’s reaction to women, 73

feeling testedfemale perspective, 68–69insights, 70men’s reaction to women, 69–70

feelingsexperiences of, 39–40reading, 40–41

female brain . See also brain; male brain

function, 31impact on behavior, 32intuitive and factual tendencies, 33“off” status, 35

female lawyers, experiences of, 1–6fight or flight, 41filters . See perceptual filtersfish aquarium, 6–8, 12–13Fisher, Helen, 32, 39framing strategies, using for blind

spots, 115–116Frankl, Victor, 149frustration . See Confusion/Frustration

GGallup study, worker morale, 10gender difference

encouraging discussions about, 147–148

introducing concept of, 43–44gender intelligence, gaining, 148“getting to the point,” 107–108


Gilligan, Carol, 15“girls,” referring to women as, 2Gottman, John, 151Gur, Ruben, 36

brain functions, 34–35reading feelings, 40

Hharassment . See accusations of

harassmenthearing differently, 35–36hierarchical mode, 10hippocampus, 36–37Holmes, O .W ., 61“How do you argue effectively?” 78

misunderstandings, 85–86perceptions, 85solutions, 86

“How do you listen effectively?” 78behaviors, 88misunderstandings, 88solutions, 89

“How do you present an idea?” 78misunderstandings, 84perceptions, 83

IIBM manager, 22ideas

presenting, 78responses to, 95–96tabling, 83–85

inappropriate behavior, “correction” by women, 106–107 . See also behavior

inclusiveness, 145industries and professions . See also

business modelsaccounting firm, 11bankers, 7, 21, 117computer firm, 112consulting firms, 21, 120, 147engineering firm, 158investment firms, 21, 147

law firm, 1–6law society, 144office equipment company, 159–162pharmaceutical company, 7, 22–23police officer, 27–28retail store, 118–119sales, 147sales executive, 25sales representatives, 159–162skin products, 9technology company, 18, 144

information, assimilation of, 36–37Ingalhalikar, Madhura, 34“insensitivity” of men, 124–125insights

accusations of harassment, 55being careful, 51clichés of alpha-male behavior, 72feeling confused, 53–54feeling dismissed, 65–66feeling excluded, 68feeling like tokens, 73–74feeling tested, 70importance of, 47–48overt focus on women, 56–57

instinct and intuition, 41, 47insula, 39interviews . See job interviewsintuitive and factual tendencies, 33investment firms, 21, 147 . See also

bankersItalian versus Danish culture, 76

Jjob interviews, 132–134jugglers, women as, 36

Llanguage

and gender awareness, 75taking responsibility for, 90–91

language quiz, 77–78 . See also listening differently; questionnaires; thinking

law enforcement, police officer, 27–28law society, 144law firm, 1–6“learning lessons,” 6left and right brain . See brainLevenson, Robert, 151listening differently, 35–36 . See also

language quiz“long-legged” ex-partner, 2

Mmale bonding

female perspective, 101men’s filter, 101solution for men, 101–102

male brain . See also brain; female brain

function of, 31impact on behavior, 32intuitive and factual tendencies, 33

male model, female perception of, 25“male-centered language”

female perspective, 99men’s filter, 99solution for men, 100

management styles, 130–131managers and supervisors, 148marital conflicts, 152–153Maya’s story, 111–113McGovern, Patrick, 43meaning, differences in, 75medical research, exclusion of women

from, 31memories, processing, 94memory and emotion, brain center of,

36–37men

acknowledgement of problem, 5–6behavior at meetings, 135–136being heard at meetings, 135–136and delegation, 137–138discomfort in work environment, 4job interviews, 132–134and leadership role, 125–127

management style, 130–131and negotiation, 138–139and networking, 139–141performance evaluations, 134–135problem solving, 131–132and public speaking, 141–142responses to complaints, 5and selling, 136–137tendencies, 44themes raised by, 48workplace terminology, 10

men and women, acknowledging differences between, 11–12

“men are insensitive,” 124–125men being overly cautious

female perspective, 102men’s filter and solution, 102

“men like the status quo,” 122–123men’s blind spots . See also blind spots;

women’s blind spotsbeing careful with women, 116–118women dealing with women,

118–119women handling tough clients,

119–121women handling tough work,

119–121men’s insights

accusations of harassment, 55being careful, 51feeling blamed, 58–59feeling confused, 53–54perceived overt focus on women, 57

men’s perceptual filters . See also perceptual filters; women’s perceptual filters

being overly cautious, 102male bonding, 101“male-centered language,” 99“protective behavior” of women, 97women being discounted, 100–101women being discredited, 100–101women feeling “excluded,” 98

index 175


men’s reactions to womenclichés of alpha-male behavior, 71feeling dismissed, 67feeling excluded, 67feeling like tokens, 73feeling tested, 69–70

“men’s room,” comments made in, 49–50

men’s sore toesarticulating problems unclearly,

103–104correcting inappropriate behavior,

106–107“women don’t get to the point,”

107–108“women generalize,” 104–105“women get emotional,” 105–106

men’s Stages of AwarenessConfusion/Frustration, 20–21Denial, 17–19Partnership/Congruence, 21–23questionnaire, 16–17Recognition/Awareness, 19–20

men’s top five challenges, 49accusations of harassment, 54–55being careful, 50–51feeling blamed, 57–59feeling confused, 52–54overt focus on women, 55–57

military, 19minority groups, belonging to, 27miscommunication, 12misinterpretation, 12misunderstandings, 6

“How do you argue effectively?” 85–86

“How do you present an idea?” 84meaning of “Yes,” 79–80solutions, 84–85sources of, 44–45“success,” 87teamwork, 82–83thinking differently, 81

Mother Theresa, 93

MRI scanner, tracking blood flow with, 42–43

multitasking, 35–36multi-thinking women, 37

NNational Institutes of Health, 31negotiation, 138–139networking, 139–141neurology . See brainNew Model, 9–10“nicknames” for women, 62–63

Ooffice equipment company, 159–162Office of Research on Women’s

Health, 31Ong, Walter, 150opinions

getting from other gender, 143relying on, 47

Outcome Frame, 156–159, 162–164 . See also Blame Frame; conflicts

overt focus on women . See also womeninsights, 56–57male perspective, 55–56women’s reaction, 56

P“partnership,” 10Partnership/Congruence, 15


patronizing behavior, 4Penn study on brain, 34perceptual filters . See also men’s

perceptual filters; women’s perceptual filters

comfort zones, 95–96differences in, 93examples, 93–94impact on communication, 95taking ownership of, 108–109

performance evaluations, 134–135

perspectives, combining, 142–145pharmaceutical company, 7, 22–23phone messages, conflicts posed by,

155–157police officer, 27–28prefrontal cortex, 37–38problems

acknowledging, 5–6articulating “clearly,” 103–104determining one’s role in, 15identification stage for women, 30ownership, 10–11

problem-solving, 37–38, 131–132professions and industries . See

industries and professionspromises, lack of fulfillment, 150promotions, giving, 145“protective behavior”

female perspective, 96–97men’s filter, 97solution for men, 97–98

public speaking, 141–142

Qquestionnaires . See also language quiz

men’s Stages of Awareness, 16–17women’s Stages of Awareness, 24

RRecognition/Awareness, 15


rejection . See S .A .R .A . (Surprise, Anger, Rejection, Acceptance)

resolving versus attacking conflict, 151–154

retail store, 118–119right and left brain . See brain

Ssales executive, 25sales firm, 147sales representatives, resolving

conflicts between, 159–162

S .A .R .A . (Surprise, Anger, Rejection, Acceptance), 154–155

Satir, Virginia, 154seeing differently, 35selling, 136–137Senge, Peter M ., 165sexist jokes, 1–2“short-person” complex, 4–5skin products, 9social sensitivity, 43solving problems . See problem-solvingsore toes, 95–96 . See also men’s sore

toes; women’s sore toessport/games model, 10Stages of Awareness, 15 . See also

men’s Stages of Awareness; women’s Stages of Awareness

statisticsacademic, 7brain sizes, 31diffusion tensor imaging, 34worker morale, 10

Stengel, Casey, 129“stepping on sore toes,” 96stereotypes, 111strengths

being inclusive, 145combining approaches, 142–145converting differences into, 145–146delegating, 137–138job interviews, 132–134management styles, 130–131negotiation, 138–139networking, 139–141performance evaluations, 134–135problem-solving, 131–132public speaking, 141–142selling, 136–137understanding, 129–130women versus men, 146

stress, dealing with, 41–42“success”

defining, 78misunderstandings, 87

index 177


perceptions, 86solutions, 87

supervisors and managers, 148surprise . See S .A .R .A . (Surprise,

Anger, Rejection, Acceptance)systematic versus automatic, 35

Ttaking things personally, 117talking, limitations of, 75Tannen, Deborah, 75, 151Taylor, Shelly E ., 41team building, 78“team-building” and “teamwork,” 10teams

conflicts on, 159–162male perspective, 10

teamworkcollaborators and competitors, 42–43definitions, 82

technology company, 18, 144tendencies

versus absolutes, 32–33of women versus men, 44

“tending and befriending,” 41–42terminology in workplace, 10thinking, differences in, 75–76 . See

also language quizthoughts, translation of, 39top-down business model, 8“toughness,” concept of, 119–121Traditional Model, 8–10

VVerma, Ragini, 34

Wwater in aquarium, changing, 12“What do you think?”

on language quiz, 77misunderstandings, 81perceptions, 80–81solutions, 82

“What is success at work?” 78

“What’s the value of building a team?”on language quiz, 78misunderstanding, 82–83perceptions, 82

“woman problem,” 7women . See also overt focus on women

anticipating reactions from men, 144–145

behavior at meetings, 135–136being “careful” with, 116–118being heard at meetings, 135–136considering career shifts, 28culture shock, 10dealing with women, 118–119and delegation, 137–138demand for equality, 31–32exclusion from medical research, 31inappropriate comments made

about, 1–2job interviews, 132–134as jugglers, 36management style, 130–131multi-thinking, 37and negotiation, 138–139and networking, 139–141overt focus on, 55–57perceptual filters, 103performance evaluations, 134–135problem identification stage, 30problem solving, 131–132and public speaking, 141–142referring to as “girls,” 2and selling, 136–137tendencies, 44unequal treatment of, 3–4

“women problem,” 7, 11women’s blind spots . See also blind

spots; men’s blind spotsmen and leadership roles, 125–127“men are insensitive,” 124–125“men like the status quo,” 122–123

women’s insightsaccusations of harassment by

men, 55

men being careful, 51men feeling blamed, 58men feeling confused, 53–54perception of overt focus by men,

56–57women’s perceptual filters . See also

men’s perceptual filters; perceptual filters

articulating problems unclearly, 104“getting emotional,” 105–106“getting to the point,” 107–108inappropriate male behavior,

106–107“women generalize,” 104–105

women’s reactionsmale accusations of harassment, 54men being careful, 50–51men feeling blamed, 58men feeling confused, 52–53overt focus on women, 56

women’s sore toesbeing discounted or discredited,

100–101feeling “excluded,” 98–99male bonding, 101–102“male-centered language,” 99–100men being overly cautious, 102“protective behavior,” 96–98

women’s Stages of AwarenessConfusion/Frustration, 27–28Denial/Unawareness, 24–26Partnership/Congruence, 28–30questionnaire, 24Recognition/Awareness, 26–27

women’s top five challenges, 62–64aping clichés of alpha-male, 70–72feeling dismissed, 64–66feeling excluded, 66–68feeling like tokens, 72–74feeling tested, 68–70

work environment, changing, 12–13worker morale, Gallup study of, 10working environment, complaints

about, 1–2workplace

problems in, 7terminology, 10“toughness” in, 119–121

Y“Yes”

on language quiz, 77misunderstandings, 79–80perceptions, 78solutions, 80

index 179

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